One of the major surprises from the mighty Bridge 9 label is surely Sleepwalkers by UK based band Dead Swans. An exciting collection of driving metallic hardcore, this young band is currently touring across the States with Comeback Kid. Here is an interview we conducted with singer Nick Worthington prior to the band making their way across the Atlantic…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Dead Swans, and how long the band has been together. Hi, I’m Nick, I sing in Dead Swans. I’d say we’ve been a band coming up three years now maybe more.

Where is the band based out of and what is the local music scene like there? We’re all just next to Brighton in a town called Worthing, apart from one of our guitarists who lives in London. The music scene here (the south) is good. There’s a lot going on in the punk and hardcore scene right now, a lot of good bands and the shows are getting better, but it always goes through phases.

Is there any story or concept behind the CD title Sleepwalkers?It’s mainly about being numb to all of your surroundings, well the songs that relate mostly to the album title are mainly about that and frustration, depression, and love. We didn’t really have a concept when we were writing it; this is just how I see it now.

Where did you get the ideas for some of the lyrics on Sleepwalkers? Please cite two or the songs and what they are about.Thinking Of You is the first track off of the album its about a situation I got myself into with my ex and the type of person I was being at the time if I was going to sum the song up into a sentence it would be (you cant see what you’re losing until its gone. 20/07/07 is a re-recorded track that we put on Sleepwalkers. It’s the date my grandfather passed away. The songs about the years in-between me being a kid when he used to look after me and now. I wish I made more of an effort during the last part of his life.

How did you wind up signing with Bridge 9 Records? We were talking about it with them for a while. We knew they wanted to work with a UK band too. It was a shock for all of us and things have been going great ever since.

Have you ever played here in the States or do you plan to do a tour here in the future? We came over there to record Sleepwalkers at Getaway Studios with Jay Maas in Boston and before recording, we did a small tour with The Carrier. It was really fun to play that far away from home. We ended up playing New England Metal Fest with a load of awesome bands. The last show was in Boston at the I.C.C Church with Colin Of Arabia, Soul Control and 108. I don’t think anyone really knew us there but the show was cool. We’re coming back to the States starting the 3rd of November with Comeback Kid and Mother Of Mercy; we’re over there for a month or so, can’t wait.

What is a live Dead Swans’ show like for those of us who have yet to see you play? Depends where you see us play I guess ha. The shows are mostly always good kids going crazy, weird shit happening. The usual. You’ve been all over Europe on tour supporting various other bands.

What have been some of your favorite places to play? I always like going to Essen in Germany. The shows there are crazy and another place would be Linkoping in Sweden. We have made a lot of friends over there so it’s always nice to come back.

Is there any place in the world you haven’t played where you would like to go?Australia for me and I think everyone else in the band too. We keep getting asked to go there. Hopefully we will be touring there next year with some of our friends, just to even go there would be good enough.

What made you decide to cover a song by My Bloody Valentine – on the surface that seems like an unusual choice… A few of us love MBV; it was just a case of which song we wanted to do. At first I wanted to cover Soon from the Glider EP, but we all decided on When You Sleep. It’s an amazing song,. We had no idea what it was going to come out like when we started recording it, but it came out so much better than we all expected, I’m so glad that we did it.

Any other cool or unusual cover songs planned for the future? I know we all want to do a Cure cover. We already have a few songs in mind – if not I’d love to cover The Who. A lot.

Are you or any other Dead Swans’ members involved with any other bands or projects?Our drummer Benny plays drums in This Is Hell from New York now, which is cool. He gets to travel all over twice as much, ha. I know he loves traveling around, so were all glad for him, and also Benny and Pid had a band in London called Trainspotters, but I don’t know what’s happening with that right now.

How did the Architects UK split come about and have you ever toured with them? Yeah we toured for that split 7″ – it was cool but I still think that was an odd time for our band. I guess they were not really the kind of shows we would usually play – good tour though.

What do you think makes Dead Swans stand apart from the many other hardcore bands out on the scene today? Our beautiful faces.